Disgraced Aaron Dare tells jury how he and popular cop plotted fraud

ALBANY — As Aaron Dare described it, the plan came together about nine years ago. It was a real estate scheme that would ultimately contribute to the blight plaguing New York’s capital city, leave dozens of people financially destroyed and cripple the reputation of two men who had once been pillars in their community.

Dare and his partner, Kenneth Wilcox, a respected Albany detective who died in April 2006, were best friends since childhood who mapped out their strategy on paper.

“When Ken and I sat down we knew that for what we were going to do, it would involve an element of fraud,” Dare said Tuesday as he testified at the criminal trial of his former fiancee, Ana Monteiro.

“Trust,” Dare said, when asked by Monteiro’s attorney, Cheryl Coleman, was what Wilcox brought to the table. “He was a respected name in the community. He dealt with the recruitment of clients … and the fact he had a badge served to further endear that development of trust. … We each played a specific role. He knew what his was.”

The testimony marked the first time that Dare, 41, who is serving lengthy, back-to-back federal and state prison sentences, spoke publicly about his years-long crime spree across the Capital Region. The story of Dare and Wilcox, which was first disclosed by the Times Union in 2007, had never been told in such excruciating detail.

In his trademark deep voice and polished speaking abilities, and with the jury at Monteiro’s trial riveted, Dare candidly described the origin of a business relationship with Wilcox that began around 2001. He looked gaunt but calm as he spoke. He shuffled into court in handcuffs and wearing a prison jumpsuit, briefly explaining his ongoing battle with heart disease and saying doctors have told him he has the heart of a 73-year-old man.

From the start, Dare said, it was a fraud. The plan that he and Wilcox devised was to “flip” properties using fake appraisals and a stream of forged loan documents. Their victims were banks, friends, acquaintances and people who were either cooperating and being paid, or too naive to know any better as their credit histories were being destroyed.

“Stealing from Peter to pay Paul?” is how a prosecutor put it to Dare Tuesday. He agreed. When it was going well, Dare said, they would take in as much as $90,000 a month. They lived like rock stars, traveling to exotic locations and staying in first-class hotels while driving expensive cars and drinking liquor that cost as much as $150 a glass or more.

“We made a decision not to take a property unless we could make at least $15,000,” Dare said.

“How does something like that start?” Coleman asked him.

“You have a need,” he said, explaining how it would unfold when they would get a bank check for a mortgage closing. “Kenny and I sat around a table. … We looked at the funds that were in his account and we said we need to take care of some other obligations instead of paying the bank and that’s how it began. You tell that first lie for what you’re doing and it just continues to explode from there.”

Together, Dare said, he and Wilcox created a maze of similarly named companies to do their real estate closings. Dare’s credit was in ruins when they started, in part due to Dare’s bankruptcy stemming from his failed leadership of the former Urban League of Northeastern New York, which he drove into financial collapse.

Bank accounts were set up in the names of companies created by Monteiro and Wilcox. Over time, millions of dollars flowed through those accounts, disgorged through teller’s checks and ATM withdrawals. They hired a small network of pawn employees, enlisted confederates from the mortgage fraud “industry” and set about bilking banks and sometimes the unsuspecting out of possibly millions of dollars.

“There was no mystery to what we were doing,” Dare said. “It was real easy to detect by looking at public records that we were flipping properties.”

Still, despite their lavish lifestyles, and Wilcox’s notoriety, city police who worked alongside the veteran detective apparently never questioned his meteoric wealth in the mortgage industry. Federal authorities, for their part, also were slow to get to the pair. In August 2004, their Tivoli Street office was raided by the FBI, but Wilcox remained on duty and their mortgage-related crimes continued unchecked.

Even when Dare pleaded guilty in November 2006, his crime spree continued while he was out on bail. Some of those crimes are the subject of the 59-count indictment against Monteiro, who met Dare in 2002 when he and Wilcox were visiting a nightclub in Providence, R.I., where she grew up.

The scheme deepened a few years in, Dare said, because they were involved with an underground network of people who were engaged in similar crimes. Wilcox, with his law enforcement background, grew nervous. There were two participants who were adept at what they were doing but Wilcox didn’t like them. Still, Dare said, “he recognized we needed them in order to really learn the industry.”

“Because of his side in law enforcement he heard they were attracting a lot of attention,” Dare said, referring to the others with whom he and Wilcox had dealings. “Ken’s big concern was that because of the number of people doing the same things (that) we were it would attract unnecessary attention.”

To minimize the problem Dare said he and Wilcox established their own property title and settlement companies. Dare said that made it easier to elude detection because now when they did real estate closings they controlled everything, and they could more easily forge documents, and dupe banks, buyers and sellers.

One of their trademarks, according to interviews with people who were victimized, is that Dare and Wilcox would perform real estate closings at their offices and insist that no attorneys be involved. Dare testified Tuesday that it would be hectic because they always kept sellers and buyers separated so that they would not catch on to what was unfolding.

Typically, he said, they would buy a house for $30,000, have it falsely appraised for triple that value and then sell it to some unsuspecting victim. In some instances, they would forge signatures, change sale amounts on publicly filed mortgage documents and fail to pay off the sellers’ banks.

“I was the polish,” Dare said. “I would go out and meet with the groups, introduce Ken and Ken would take it from that point. Ken would be the one who would sit with them to talk about how it would happen. … They would not hear from him again. The checks would just start coming across.”

As he testified for the defense Tuesday, Dare sought to distance Monteiro, his ex-fiancee, from the fraud. He claimed he had fooled her and that, despite her deep involvement in the real estate dealings, including her the use of her bank accounts and credit, that she didn’t know what was going on. Monteiro faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Baynes, chief of the financial crimes unit, pressed Dare on that assertion. He read portions of transcripts from Dare’s federal plea hearing and sentencing from more than two years ago. Banes noted Monteiro was in the federal courtroom in November 2006 when a federal prosecutor read off a charge against Dare that included 31 instances of mortgage fraud involving an unidentified conspirator — later identified by the Times Union as Wilcox.

Wilcox’s role in the crimes was never revealed publicly by federal authorities. Dare pleaded guilty to federal charges seven months after Wilcox’s death and, in an apparent effort to protect Wilcox’s standing in the law enforcement community, federal prosecutors refused to identify the properties related to Dare’s residential mortgage fraud crimes. Those properties would have pointed to Wilcox, whose name was attached to many of the deals.

Dare said it was the FBI who kept Wilcox’s name out of the public court records. The agency, through a spokesman, previously said they did so only at Dare’s urging during delicate plea negotiations.

“I didn’t push for it not to include his name,” Dare said. “The agents at the time said that since he was dead there was no need to drag his name through it.”

Upon Wilcox’s death there were still hundreds of thousands of dollars in his bank accounts. Testimony at Monteiro’s trial showed the money was turned over to Wilcox’s family, and not to any alleged victims of his uncharged crimes.

Closing arguments in Monteiro’s trial are scheduled to begin this morning.

Brendan J. Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

39 Responses

Upon Wilcox’s death there were still hundreds of thousands of dollars in his bank accounts. Testimony at Monteiro’s trial showed the money was turned over to Wilcox’s family, and not to any alleged victims……I think this should open another investigation what did they do with the money, you know they knew it was illegally aquired.
Let’s see if this falls through the cracks like all of the other corrupt cops.

Comment to Mark all cops are not corrupt it is unfair to say that because one of Albany’s finest made some really bad decisions. However, the family of the officer should not have received the money if it was aquired illegally it should of went back to the poor people who were fooled into a shady real estate deal. I’m sure the victims thought that they could trust this “officer” and that he wouldn’t lead them wrong. The victims were trying to purchase a home for their families not the late officers or Aaron Dare’s family or so they could travel and live like “rock stars” as Aarom put it. It shows the greed of these two men; one who swore to protect and the fiance knew what was happening there is not way any jury should believe her.

This is so pathetic. How these frauds thought they could get away with these schemes and how they could ruin peoples lives without blinking an eye is beyond the pale. Dare, I hope all the high living was worth the jail-time you’re doing now. What a chivilrous dude Dare is, speaking in defense of his ex-fiance?!! You can’t tell me she didn’t know what was going on and furthermore why in the world would anyone in their right mind believe a word Dare says? He’s a convicted pathological liar among other things.

I still think Wilcox car accident was intentional, I think he couldnt live with his conscience. Why did the ill earned money go to his family? Seems like law enforcement knew, but because they loved Wilcox, just let the money slide through. The ex fiance is going to jail!

i think its a shame that now all of sudden all this corruption, fraud, money, etc all seems to be pointing at detective wilcox, and aaron dare has chosen to put this info out all of sudden, and how his ex-girlfriend had no clue in the matters at hand….thats wrong and i can see behind and through the story…aaron dare has decided to place all blame on himself and ken wilcox and the fact that ken is dead that gives aaron the freedom to say and involve wilcox in it as much as he can…a dead man cant defend himself…and aaron is protecting his so called ex girlfriend, she knew about it & she engaged in this ugly drama..aaron is trying to reduce his sentence and at the same time get his ex girlfriend out free…

An unfortunate situation for all involved however, part of the blame should be placed on those in charge of the “industry” involved. When I purchased my home, I had to jump through hoops to do so and show where every penny, nickle and dime of the downpayment was acquired. As for those poor victims, I sure they are aware of the saying – if it sounds to good to be true it probably is!!!!!!

It appears the Albany FBI did their part to keep Wilcox’s name out of this. Which appears to be wrong. Especially since that meant hundreds of thousands of dollars going to his family when that money was acquired via criminal activity.

Is it any wonder that the lead candidate for the head of the Albany Police Department is the guy who was in charge of the Albany FBI at the time? Obviously he is willing to continue the culture of keeping all members of the APD above the law.

And what does it say of the investigative skills of the other Albany detectives if none of them were suspicious of Wilcox’s sudden wealth?

Is it me or does it seem a bit strange that aaron dare was the last to see and be with detective wilcox the night of his death???…according the article(timesunion),wilcox question dare about who he was dealing with which caused some friction between the two, they disagreed, etc…so i ask again, isnt it strange that dare and wilcox were together the night of his death??? maybe that angle should be looked into!

The ones that get caught are the tip of the iceberg. The economy tanked in large part because of massive amounts of mortgage fraud being done by those in the housing and finance industries including everyone from real estate agents to brokers, lenders, homebuilders, title agents, and so on. I was working with a consumer group at the time the housing bubble started heating up and happened to be doing research that led to discovery of early warnings of this. Sadly, those warnings were ignored by anyone in power to stop it. The most telling was the FBI warning in about 2004 that mortgage fraud was so rampant it’d damage the economy, and the same agency’s reports that showed the INDUSTRY was doing it 80% of the time. Even in that remaining 20% many were flippers, straw buyers, investors, not really ‘home buyers’ in the true sense. Think about it–there’s no way that such massive complex schemes could be created and carried out by consumers, who are generally not even educated enough to fully understand their purchase agreements and loan papers. There are numerous reports on mortgage fraud on the fbi.gov site now. Besides this, even before the FBI published its reports, many bloggers, economists, and consumer groups warned this was a problem, and they were of course ignored too. The few cases that get prosecuted are but a taste of what is still going on.

Yeah, where’s Alice Green now? She supports the murderers of that white college student, but not these two black, white-collar criminals?

I wonder if Green or the so-called Center for Truth and Justice got caught up in Dare’s sceme? Is that why she’s been silent? He was too big a player in Albany for her NOT to have worked with him in some way.

As a close affiliate of the wilcox family, I can attest that the family never received any money from the late detective’s bank account. Any statement that assumes otherwise is completely inaccurate! The family is still struggling with the tragic events that occurred over 4 years ago and to have this article suggest any wrong doings on the family is very irresponsible and unfortunate!

In response to entry “6” above, clearly Ex-Girlfriend was not the brains behind the operation nor did she start the fraud, the “partners” were doing this long before she became “the girlfriend”. Its appears Mr. Dare IS trying to protect her (as he should) as I am sure he would have protected Detective Wilcox. Although Detective Wilcox’s name was not revealed in the earlier proceedings, those of us with the ability to read between the lines knew to whom they were referring.

Wilcox was a decorated “bum”, a rogue cop, who, like Dare was jail bound sooner or later… I can recall Al Gore extolling Dare’s virtues in 2000, and the current mayor (along with the local media), extolling Wilcox as some kind of a hero in the black community at the time of his death.

How easily we can all be fooled by the virtuousness of the virtued….(or so they would like to have us believe). One has to wonder how many others like these two scoundrels (Dare & Wilcox) are out there today, ripping off the unassuming, the ignorant and the niaive people in our fair city. Probably more than most of us realize…

Terrel (#9), whats strange is that one month prior to events being diclosed Detective Wilcox was killed in an accident which involved no other vehicles – are you really suggesting that someone other than the driver of that car was involved????? Stop.

“Wilcox’s role in the crimes was never revealed publicly by federal authorities. Dare pleaded guilty to federal charges seven months after Wilcox’s death and, in an apparent effort to protect Wilcox’s standing in the law enforcement community, federal prosecutors refused to identify the properties related to Dare’s residential mortgage fraud crimes. Those properties would have pointed to Wilcox, whose name was attached to many of the deals.”

Hey FBI & US Attorney’s Office: what part of “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity” don’t you understand? Sounds like your boys are running a little light on the “integrity” side…protecting another cop – just because he’s a cop? When it comes to “looking out for your own” – think of the citizens of Albany and America as “your own”, not just the guys wearing a uniform. Otherwise everything breaks down. This is the kind of thing we might expect from some third world PD, but not from the FBI. You guys are supposed to be above this kind of nonsense. Take a look at those gold badges you carry – the symbolism means “Justice is Blind” – everyone gets treated fairly – think about it.

ex-girlfriend may not have been the brains, but she was no dummy! Don’t believe for one minute she was totally oblivious to all the goings-on. Maybe not as guily as Dare, but definitely guilty. In my experience, oft times, once a liar always a liar. Dare is just once
again cleverly lying to protect the girl for some kind of self benefit.

I’ve been saying since Wilcox’s activities leading up to his accident (I STILL say he was DWI and speeding) that he was dirty. It seems that is the truth. The FBI did NOTHING to stay on the side of justice, and instead, gave Dare ANOTHER set of lies to promote with their backing. I agree that the money “given” to Wilcox’s survivors should be recovered completely and returned to the victims here.

Shame on you FBI!! This mess needs to be investigated thoroughly. If you are going after the governor for some free world series tickets, you better clear this up! Shame on Albany PD for turning their face against a fellow cop living like a rock star!!! Gimme a break- no cop noticed he was living beyond a cops salary? No one was suspicious?
In response to #7. comment by J9, these were poor people that they swindled, they werent sophisticated folks that knew the ins and outs of real estate. Dont blame the VICTIMS!!
I still say the car accident was fishy–conscience caught up with this cop.

Typical David Soares. Instead of trying to recoup ill-gotten gains from the estate of a filthy cop,Dares partner in crime and the main principle of the scheme, they decide to spend their time and resources on prosecuting this woman.

This is probably get alot of comments but her goes: I believe that Mr. Wilcox purposly caused a crash to die! He would never have survived jail with all the criminals he put behind bars. If you die on duty your family will be helped. If you die on duty you are hailed a hero not a criminal. Think about it, he obviously knew he was gonna go down with Dare!

And HOW is he a “hero”? I hear way too much of that lately. State police dying in the line of duty.. heroes. Cops dying in the line of duty.. heroes. What about all the military people? Are they heroes too? For me, a hero is one who does something that is more than what’s expected of them, or who dies while doing it. Driving and speeding, crashing, and dying is NOT a hero in my opinion. That’s more like ignoring the basic laws of traffic safety. But, if people want to call him a hero, then he will always be called a hero, but not by me.

This case, with the countless innocent working-class members of society victimized by a Albany police officer and a renowned former Urban League leader who used their positions in the community to fleece people valiantly trying to get their own piece of the American Dream, certainly will be addressed by the Center for Law and Justice. It’s another classic case of the influential and law enforcement combining to fleece the oppressed.

I am writing in response to all those who believed the pathological lies of Aaron Dare, he’s coward who constantly purger himself, anyone who everything he touches are ruined, even before his dealing with Ken Wilcox, I think it is so sad they we are given such comment that support a LIAR, and a Convicted Felon, even after Wilcox death Aaron still forged his Wilcox name on several mortages, hello people did we forget Wilcox had passed, and as far as any monies he turned over to the Wilcox family that is a Lie, what is more believable is he knows he has the money, or turned it over to his family or his ex-fiancee family that is why he is protecting her. We all know that is more believable.

Duh??? Many of us are sitting here w/ are mouths hung open, as we hear the details of how “grimey” and “greedy”, all involved were. Including ex-girlfriend. But remember this is all coming out NOW! Due to Aaron’s “confessional” (oh I mean testimony). Don’t get it twisted he is not talking ’cause his conscience got to him. So to assume the family knew anything is wrong. Do you think Kwill would go home and say “oh yeah, by the way family I’ve been involved in some illegal activities today”. I bet they are hearing some things for the first just like everybody else. It’s very sad and disappointing. This has nothing to do w/ Alice Green or anybody else, is she in this indictment?

Deceased or not K-Will was involved in this scheme up to his eye balls. He served (pretended to be) as a positive role model in the black community. I was not about him being a hero, but people looked up to him as someone who made something of his life and gave others hope that they too can rise above their circumstances. He knowingly went into business with a criminal, lived a lavish life stlye, and left a lot of innocent people feeling the burden of his crime. I too believed that money was turned over to his family that did not rightfully belong to K-Will. He had his own bank account that I am sure Dare did not have access to. Its just sad that he left this world with his family and his victims to be faced with the consequences of his actions.